A Year of Reading Oceania

It all started in 2012 with a small group in Goodreads, who wanted to read 52 books "Around the World." I started collecting books for that challenge in October 2011 and haven't looked back! I have yet to read a book from every country, and unlike Ann Morgan, the reader who got a lot of attention this year for a similar project she completed in a year, I am taking my sweet time about it. I'm not limiting myself to one title per country, just at least one. And if I get attached to a place, I stay there in my reading.

I have joined a few more groups in Goodreads that urge me forward in my reading. One of the most useful has been "The World's Literature," as it focuses on a new part of the continent every year. When I first joined we read Japan (2012), then Turkey (2013), then Iceland (2014). This year for the first time they chose to read a larger region - Oceania and Southeast Asia. I narrowed it farther to just Oceania (apart from one country that is arguably in both regions) because I felt like Southeast Asia could have its own year. I have grown to let their choices be a very vague guide to my reading. I don't necessarily read along with all the selections, but still discuss my reading with the group. Sometimes I join in with a group read when it fits my mood or a country I still need to cover.

This year, I read thirty-six books from Oceania. What an amazing time I've had. I have no idea how to put it into words so for now I will make a list by country (the image is organized by date finished, most recent upper left.) I plan to reflect more on it on the next Reading Envy podcast, posting the first Tuesday of January. I will say that when I set out to do this, I intentionally did not read much from Australia, feeling as if I had done quite a bit of this already from Booker Prize winners to silly Phryne Fisher mysteries. I wanted to dig into places I had never been in my reading. Other than the Theroux I still haven't read a book from every country in Oceania. I will return to those at some point, but next year finds me moving to a new region of the world!

I also spent the year experimenting with baked goods from Oceania. You can read about those projects over on JennyBakes. With no further delay, my Oceania list of books!

Australia
Sentenced to Life: Poems by Clive James (my review)
Lost & Found by Brooke Davis (my review)

Indonesia (part is in Oceania!)
Indonesian Cooking: Satays, Sambals and More by Dina Yuen (my review)
This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (my review)

New Guinea (West Papua, part of Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea)
The Asmat of New Guinea: the journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller, with his ethnographic notes and photos made among the Asmat people during two expeditions in 1961 by Michael C. Rockefeller (my review)
Euphoria by Lily King (my review)
Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea by Kira Salak (my review)
From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea  by Paige West (my review)
Garden of War: Life and Death in The New Guinea Stone Age by Robert Gardner (my review)
Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead (my review)
Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff (my review)
Michael Rockefeller: New Guinea Photographs, 1961 by Kevin Brubriski (my review)
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman  (my review)
Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea by Tobias Schneebaum (my review)
Where the Spirits Dwell: An Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea by Tobias Schneebaum (my review)
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond (my review)

 New Zealand
The Aloe by Katherine Mansfield (my review)
An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame (autobiography #2) (my review)
Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham (my review)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (my review)
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story by Christina Thomson (my review)
The Envoy from Mirror City by Janet Frame (autobiography #3) (my review)
Faces in the Water by Janet Frame (my review)
Hot October: An autobiographical story by Lauris Edmond (my review)
A Man Lay Dead: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #1 by Ngaio Marsh (my review)
New and Selected Poems by Lauris Dorothy Edmond (my review)
Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff (my review)
One Whale, Singing (Stories From New Zealand) by various (my review)
Potiki by Patricia Grace (my review)
To the Is-Land by Janet Frame (autobiography #1) (my review)
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (my review)
When Sun And Moon Collide by Briar Grace-Smith (my review)
Wulf by Hamish Clayton (my review)

Pitcairn Island
Serpent in Paradise by Dea Birkett (my review)

Samoa
The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt (my review)
Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation by Margaret Mead (my review)

Various
The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux (my review)

Reading Envy 046: Books for Your Kitty Party (Best of 2015)

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Books discussed:

Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall (Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator #1)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Men of Salt: Crossing The Sahara On The Caravan Of White Gold by Michael Benanav
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago
10:04 by Ben Lerner
Cain by Jose Saramago
How to be both by Ali Smith
Ready Player One by Ernst Cline
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
Lucia's Progress (Lucia & Mapp #5) by E.F. Benson
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3) by Robert Galbraith
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Armada by Ernst Cline
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
You by Caroline Kepnes
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Girl Who Never Was and The Boy With The Hidden Name by Skylar Dorset
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life by Glennon Doyle Melton
The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes!
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
The American Lover by Rose Tremain


My Best Books of 2015:



Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest by Carl Hoffman
The World Is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse by Joni Tevis
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Stoner by John Williams
Euphoria by Lily King
The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marr
Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud (2013, ep. 41)


Other mentions:

Monsoon Wedding (film)
Charulata (film)
Jaipur Literary Festival
Fernando Pessoa

Persephone Books

Related episodes:

Episode 001 - Episode the First! (discussion of Yanagihara)
Episode 004 - Home, Frightening and Banned with guest Karen Acosta
Episode 008 - Gone Rogue with guests Steve Richardson, Libby Young, and Mike Winiski
Episode 022 - Gods and Cannibals with guest Chris (discussion of the Abbey)
Episode 024 - The Attention of Humanity with guests Seth Wilson and Barret Newman
Episode 025 - Mule and Plow with guest Jason Roland (discussion of "Us Conductors")
Episode 027 - A Conference of Librarians with a bunch of guests (including Ruth Szpunar)
Episode 028 - The Room of Requirement with guest David Galloway
Episode 029 - Joni Tevis and the Secret Shape with guest Joni Tevis
Episode 033 - An Undulating Thrum with guests Ruth and Elizabeth (and discussion of Williams)
Episode 034 - The Liminal Space Between with guest Paul Weimer
Episode 037 - Breakdancing to Bach with Juliane Kunzendorf (discussion of Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Episode 039 - Paranoid Squint with Fred (Coates discussion near end)
Episode 041 - Grotesque Beauty with Nathan Ballingrud
Episode 043 - Librarian Time Capsule for SCLA's 100th Anniversary (including Libby Young)
Episode 045 - Worlds Collide with Ross O'Brien (and discussion of Butler)